


The Outer Seas

by saliache



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, I got tired of all the angst and despair in this pairing, M/M, Silverfisting, Space Elves, a lot of rebuilding, and an entire buttload of OCs, and end terribly, because Tolkien didn't give us much to go on here, because the original was a hot mess, edited and reposted, featuring spaceship Eregion, interstellar empires, just a mess, no, of course, so this is going to be sweet and snarky and cheesy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saliache/pseuds/saliache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven hundred years after the end of the First Age, Celebrimbor son of Curufin meets Annatar of no particular background. Together they explore the galaxy, make nice with the humans, and occasionally hunt down stray Balrogs from the War of Wrath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Maia With Which to Pilot a Ship

The Doors were beautiful. The silvery _ithildin_ embedded in the great orbital station’s hull near glowed in the light of the Khazad system’s sun.

 “Success,” Narvi toasted, raising her glass. “Durin will be pleased.”

 Celebrimbor eyed the Doors cautiously, as if the _ithildin_ would suddenly crack off and vanish into the depths of space. “You should be the one to open her ports, Narvi. Out of all of us, you put in the most work. It should be your honor.”

 “Only because you were called away during the second phase, lad. It is your designs that set the Doors above every other station in known space.” Her great dark eyes were piercing. “None shall breach her while Eregion and Khazad-dum are allies.”

 “They won’t even have the chance,” Celebrimbor found himself promising. Narvi grinned at him and chugged the rest of her ale.

 The Doors, he thought, once he was back on the worldship, were even more beautiful when open. But then, he had designed them so. Beside their grandeur even Eregion paled in her beauty, but, he admitted to himself with a chuckle, he was admittedly rather biased on this point. In the distance, he could see the first vector trails of ship engines entering realspace at the edge of the system. Human ships, he judged, from their positioning. Very well, then. They would bear first witness to his latest creation.

 Eregion sang in his mind; she was ready, and eager to go. Her process-points flashed jewel-bright in his mind.

 “Initiate jump protocols,” he commanded. “We will make the jump to Lindon in T minus thirty minutes. We are quite late enough as it is.”

 “Oh, won’t Ereinion have his knickers in a knot over this,” someone sniggered.

 “I think he must be quite used to it, actually,” Celebrimbor replied, speaking loudly enough for the whole bridge to hear. “In any case, there is a time and a place for factional slander, and this is not it.”

 The bridge was silent.

 “Prepare for translation,” he continued. “We have more than enough time to jump to Lindon.” Lies. If he weren’t careful they would most definitely be late. Eregion tittered nervously in his mind.

 “Preparing for translation,” her voice echoed from the speakers. “Initiating translation protocols. Jumping to Lindon in T minus thirty minutes.”

 Celebrimbor moved to his standard position at the railing in front of the central dais where he could see the entire operations screens, and tried to ignore the empty Navigator pods behind him as data unspooled behind his eyes.

 He had yet to do ill by Eregion. He would manage. 

* * *

 

They were, predictably, late. Gil-galad’s face was an impressive sight to behold, and for a minute Celebrimbor was afraid even the plasma lance he’d made as a gift wouldn’t be enough to mollify him. Then Gil-galad’s face softened, and he sighed and ordered one of his lackeys to see to the plasma lance’s installation.

 “Translational troubles?” he asked genially as servants moved around them, offering refreshments.

 “The trip was smooth,” he admitted, taking a sip of some warm, sweet human beverage and trying to ignore a towering headache. “It was my own fault. Piloting Eregion is difficult even at the best of times.”

 “Perhaps you should not have tried to build your own worldship, then,” Elrond interjected from Gil-galad’s other side. “It sounds rather taxing.”

 “It is,” he said shortly, and left it at that.

 Gil-galad and Elrond exchanged looks.

 “We may… be able to help,” Elrond began uncertainly. “There was a visitor. He docked at the orbital station three weeks ago, in a ship whose design matches none in our records. He claims to be Ainur – a Maia, we believe. We were unwilling to let him into the system without proper identification, but it sounds like you need a copilot.”

 “I can manage,” Celebrimbor insisted. Eregion sent a burst of positive through their link, and he shuddered as his implant exploded with pain. “Uncle Arafinwë managed to pilot Tirion back to Valinor by himself, and I have the help of an AI.”

 “If you say so,” Gil-galad murmured, but he could see the doubt in their eyes.

 “I should go find this Ainu of yours before he decides to wander off,” Celebrimbor offered, and made his escape.

 The Maia was likely living on or near his ship, if he were still in residence at all, so instead of heading back to Eregion’s berth near Sirion he took a shuttle to the outermost ring.

  _Ring_ would have been putting it in enormously optimistic terms. The outer rim of the Lindon system was far too large to be entirely ringed, and so small orbital stations had been set up at the most commonly used jump points. Time and use had changed them from mere waystations to checkpoints, border garrisons, and disturbingly seedy black markets.

 The one the Maia was reputed to be staying at was no different; Celebrimbor could barely see the graceful lines of the original station’s Eldarin architecture behind the mass of additional hab-blocks, pylons, and docks that had been added on. He wondered briefly if Eregion would become something similar one day. She was very small for a worldship, after all, and surely, without the aid of an Ainur copilot she was better served stationary – he shut down that train of thought as he nudged the shuttle into an empty hangar bay. He had come here to rectify that situation, after all.

 The dockmaster’s greeting flashed on his viewscreen, and he paid the exorbitant landing fee without question. The cost for missing the Maia’s departure would be steeper. Still, as he stepped out the airlock, he wondered if he were already too late. The metal here was bare and rusting, and he could smell traces of coolant and filtrate in the air. The lights here were dim even for his eyes, but he supposed he didn’t want to see what they would have illuminated anyways.

 Eregion uploaded a report; she was ready for departure.

 The station’s hallways were in no better condition; he could see at least three leaking pipes, and only one of them was dripping water.

  _Humans_. Only humans could be this shoddy. And they were expanding even here, it seemed.

 He paused at the elevator; if this station still followed its original design, then there would be a central hall on the fifth floor, but he doubted it still served its original purpose. And in any case, there were more than six floors to this station now. He was still debating which floor to attempt first when the elevator slid open.

 It had to be the Maia. No other beings could invoke that rush at the edge of his senses, nonexistent wind sliding past him, a soft whispering in his ears, dazzling with light even in the semi-dark. This Maia was golden.

 “Oh,” he said.

 The Maia, as it turned out, called himself Annatar. He simply offered his services then and there, and at Celebrimbor’s quiet assent, glided out of the elevator and into his life.


	2. Interlude: Melian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long, long time ago, in the exact same galaxy, a lone ship seeking haven comes across trouble - and fortune. The meeting of Thingol and Melian, but IN SPACE
> 
> otherwise known as Melian Pulls Everyone’s Asses Out of the Fire

“We’re dead in the water!” Mablung cried. “Controls not responding!”

 Elwë checked his ship’s engine output; engine four was choked, reporting half a dozen ruptures along its feed-tubes. The other five were offline altogether. “Stay _calm_ ,” he hissed. “Panic will not help us now.”

 “Understandable panic,” Beleg added cheerfully. Inappropriately cheerfully, Elwë thought. Times like these always made him wonder whether his co-captain had been dropped on his head as an elfling. “Weapons are offline!”

 Great. Just great. Their ship could not founder _now_. She carried the vast majority of their people, and he could not let them die. Not now. Not while they were so close. Not after he’d sworn to the Valar themselves that he would see this through.

 “Beleg, hail Denethor. See if you can reach him. Tell him… tell him we’re in trouble, and that he is to stay away, at all costs. Mablung, damage report!”

 Ship schematics flashed onto the main viewscreen, damaged sections highlighted in red, and nonresponsive ones dark. The extent of the damage was frightening. The core of the liveship, the great world-sphere housing the vast majority of their people and life-support systems, was undamaged, but four long, parallel ruptures ran close to the ship’s spine.

 “Forward hangar three is responding,” Beleg said. “They’re asking to scramble fighters. Denethor is not responding.”

 “Scramble the first scout wing,” Elwë ordered. “Order the rest to hold in reserve. No. Send them out. We can’t afford more losses if the forward hangars are lost.”

 “Main cannon not responding, either,” Mablung added. “Getting no readings ventral-laterally. My lord, if whatever caused this comes back…”

 “Still not hailing Denethor!”

 Elwë took a breath, fighting down useless anger. A Balrog. It had to be. What else could tear the ship up so, four gashes like the claws on a giant hand?

 They could not fight a Balrog. But…

 “Sir-” 

 “Mablung. How long can engine four maintain output? Try to bring up our secondary atmospheric thrusters. We passed a system not long ago. There was a garden world there, as I recall. We’ll head for there.”

 “This is madness,” Mablung objected. “My lord-”

 “If what I believe has attacked us has truly attacked us,” Elwë snarled, “Then we are safest in the protective envelope of an atmosphere. Our assailant prefers the empty Void.”

 “A Balrog, then.” Beleg’s voice was calm; a quick glance showed otherwise. “Sire, the scout wing is not reporting in.”

 Dead, then. Or taken by the Balrog. His choice…

 “Scramble the other wings,” he ordered, despair settling into his heart. “One at a time, in order from most-damaged to least. They will cover our retreat.”

 There was silence in the cockpit. _Never before have we sacrificed our own like this,_ Elwë thought.

 “Understood,” Beleg said, his voice flat.

 “You can’t-”

 “Ensign, hush!”

 “My brother is flying one of those wings!”

 “-and if we don’t do this, we might all die-”

 “-wasn’t your partner-”

 “-flew the scout wing-”

 “My lord,” Mablung’s voice cut through the chatter. “Reading something large on our scanners. Something large… in the sense that our sensors cannot read it at all.”

 The Balrog had come.

 Mablung had drawn up a tactical map on the viewscreen, but Elwë could see past it, into the starlit Void behind. A great shadow had come, blotting out the stars.

 “It’s so fast,” Beleg whispered.

 “We’re not going to make it,” Mablung added grimly. “Our acceleration is decreasing drastically.”

 “We have to _try_ ,” Elwë snapped.

 “We make it to the planet, and what then?” Galathil asked stonily. “We won’t land easily. We can’t, not after losing most of our main engines. Would the _Eglador_ even survive the crash? Would any of us?”

 “Would we survive a Balrog?” Elwë hissed. “We are out of options-”

 “Second signature, incoming!”

  _He stood in a vast forest. There was song here, a deep, half-subconscious thing that thrummed in his veins and quickened his breath. Mist had settled, making it impossible to see for more than a dozen yards in any direction, but the skies were clear._

_These were stars in formations he had not seen in a long, long time. The Hunter stood guard over head, and he could see the Plough far to the north. The red War-star gleamed overhead, a star that was not a star, as did the Dawn-star. The leafy crowns of trees he had last seen near the waters of his birth framed them._

_LITTLE ONE. The mist shuddered. LITTLE ONE._

_“Show yourself!” he cried._

_YOU HAVE COME?_

_The mist swirled, thickening. Clouds were moving in, overhead_

_“Who are you? Where am I? What have you done? Show yourself!”_

_CHILD._

_“I am no child any longer,” he spat angrily. “Show yourself!”_

_YOU ARE HUNTED._

_The mist coalesced in front of him, took on a shape. He stood before Her, a great shining Presence, vast and bright. She could be only one thing._

_“My lady. Forgive my rudeness.”_

_YOU ARE HUNTED. NO MORE._

_“Thank you, my lady.” But what was one of the Ainur doing here?_

_WAKE._

“Status report,” he croaked.

 “My lord! You’re awake!”

 Well, of course. “Status report,” he insisted, pulling himself up. His joints were stiff, and his mouth disgustingly fuzzy. Someone handed him a cup of water, and he drained it. “What happened?”

 “ _I_ happened, Elwë Singollo.”

 Elwë nearly dropped the cup. She stood before him, radiant in the dusk of an unfamiliar sky, in woman-shape but taller, a tiny smile on Her face. Despite the awkwardness of his body, he found himself grinning back.

 “We are lucky you came along when you did, my lady. We could not have fended off the Balrog ourselves.”

 “And I am glad to be of help. We did not anticipate the journey would be so dangerous.”

 “She fought off that Balrog like it was nothing,” a young woman – Nellas, he thought, Galathil’s daughter – grinned excitedly. “You should have seen it!”

 “Perhaps he did,” the Ainu said, and smiled. Her eyes and Elwë’s met amusedly, and a tremor of song ran through him.

 “We’re rebuilding, as well,” Mablung said. “You were out for quite some time.”

 “He took pity on you and even summarized all his reports,” Beleg added.

 Nellas grinned. “Everyone lives,” she added grandly. “Even if we are stuck on this backwater planet for now.”

 “A happy ending, I believe you would call this,” the Ainu – a Maia, he thought – finished. There was something like satisfaction on her face.

 “You are welcome to stay with us, lady…” he thought of her name, writ in stardust and light, visible and inscrutable as the endless mist. “Melian.”

 “I would like that,” Melian said softly, and clasped his hand. 


	3. Interlude: Nerdanel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nerdanel, in the aftermath of the War of the Jewels (IN SPACE, as per the usual)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: description of a mutilated body

Beside her, Ambarussa eyed the blasted landscape distastefully, gleaming even through the ashfall and the poisoned clouds covering the sun.

 “Do you think Father would be surprised?” one of them asked. The other said nothing and merely shifted his grip on his weapon.

 Nerdanel shifted her focus to the descending bulk of the _Light of Aman_. The winds kicked up by its increasing atmospheric displacement howled around the empty floodplain. The great warship’s thrusters spat lances of fire, then settled as it settled into a comfortable low orbit. Great armored plates along its belly opened up, releasing dark clouds of fighters and dropships.

 Beside her, her two eldest sons grinned wearily. “It’s about time,” Macalaurë quipped.

* * *

The Valarin offensive would take centuries to complete. Like in past ages, Nerdanel sat in front of her husband, talking to him. Unlike in past ages, he did not respond. There was only low, constant humming from the thing Macalaurë called a stasis pod.

 Fëanor they called him now, the Spirit of Fire, half legend and half history, a name pieced together and bastardized from Sindarin and Quenya alike, forced through a filter of Atani pronunciation. He would have hated the changes they made to it.

  _His fëa was damaged, somehow, we think,_ a nervous Telerin doctor had explained. _Some devilry of Morgoth’s. A corruption in the Song, perhaps, since we can find nothing wrong with his hröa. His body was dying, but his spirit could not escape. So Macalaurë interred him here rather than risk losing his fëa entirely._

 “I don’t think you would have approved of what our sons did after your… fall,” she murmured. There was no response. “Atarinkë believed that returning you to the Halls of Mandos can heal you, but without the Silmarils even the Halls are not what they used to be.”

 Nerdanel swallowed, feeling acutely the weight of her ages pressing upon her. Of course, Atarinkë was also beyond her reach, his fëa fled back to the Halls long ago. She had tried to find him, tried to find all her dead children before Námo had politely requested her leave, but with the chaos in the aftermath of the destruction of the Trees it had been impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the whispery, half-aware disembodied presences singing in the great. grey chambers of his Halls.

 “Our sons have certainly made a mess of things, you know. They _changed_ , when you fell, and it was not for the better. It seems they cannot trust even their allies now. Or perhaps their allies do not trust them.”

 Fëanor’s face, peaceful as it had not been in the last days before the Darkening, gave no answers. He could almost have been sleeping, she mused, except for the charred edges of where a Balrog’s fire-blade had neatly taken out half his ribcage, and down below where something had nearly torn him apart at the waist. Cybernetics clung to his left arm, attaching it to the remnants of its shoulder socket.

 “Did you know what would happen when you led them here? Is that why you left me and Ambarussa? Was all this – was _dying_ – all part of some grand plan of yours?

 “Damn you, Fëanáro. Damn you and your damned pride and your damned pigheaded _stubbornness_. Morgoth played you like one of those Mannish _fiddles_.”

 The stasis pod beeped, spitting out a report; no changes. She archived it and began the undocking sequence. For all his faults, she couldn’t just leave him here to rot. They needed him.

Dimly, she realized she was alone. The technicians had left long ago, and she resisted the urge to curse. She wrestled the pod out of the lab on her own, knocking over a row of test tubes and a box of cuvettes in the process. Outside, a pair of Maia of Námo waited. She nodded, and they reached out and took Fëanor from her. He was no longer her responsibility; she had a war to finish.

* * *

 There was no resuscitating Fëanor, of course. Not until they could return the Silmarils to their rightful place in Aman. So instead she turned to their allies. Her sons’ exploits were the stuff of legend to them, recounted and recapped in history books, in anecdotes passed in word-of-mouth and in chain letters, and in holovids.

 “I don’t think this one is too badly done,” the Man-woman Morwen, who had shown up in her airlock as an “official liaison” the week the Valar had arrived, said lazily as she reached into a large bowl of instant foodstuffs. “It’s supposed to be historically accurate, and I think they did a good job with the special effects.”

 Like most historical accounts, this one began with a quick introduction, a droning male voice expounding on the discovery of the great white ships of the Teleri on the fringes of the local star system. Nerdanel caught glimpses of old footage of great warships sliding into real-space just beyond the orbit of the nearest dwarf planet. More images flashed; her husband striding confidently down the ramp of a troop transport, her sons shaking hands with local dignitaries, images of old battles and the bloated, distended outlines of Morgoth’s corrupted ships. Images of the fallen Vala’s disgusting creations, cybernetically-driven lumps of flesh grown as soldiers, interspersed themselves with others showing the Noldor working with humans to synchronize their technology, to build new and greater ships. Even Fëanor was in there, a quick clip of his speech to the Noldor on the eve of the Darkening. Someone must have brought it over from Aman.

 As the video continued, Nerdanel noticed something. Most of the human faces appeared only for the span of a few decades before being replaced by others.

 “I have heard rumors,” she said slowly, “that humans never really stop aging – that your bodies simply continue to wear down until you simply… die.”

 “And I’ve heard rumors that Elves don’t,” Morwen responded easily. “Although we’re no helpless fools. We’ve learned to control our aging cycles easily enough now, more or less, although at some points we despaired because it seemed we had reached our limits! Oh, we’ll never be quite as immortal as you Elves – we’re not built for it, after all, and our minds degenerate something fierce after a few centuries – but it’s better than nothing.”

 The vid went on, illustrating heroics she had never considered and battles she had never condoned. Quite clearly there was much she still had to learn. The work never ended, she mused.


End file.
